Perceived Racism and Self-Reported Health in a Diverse Sample
Jasmin Kwok, St. John's University’s Student
Elizabeth Brondolo, Department of Psychology, St. John’s College of liberal Arts and Sciences
Juhee Jhalani, Asha Kumar, Alan Roth, Jahanara Ullah
Abstract: Racism has been hypothesized to serve as a stressor impairing the health status of ethnic minority groups. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship of perceived racism to self-reported health in three ethnic minority groups. The 595 person sample included 134 American-born Blacks (102 women), 88 American-born Latino(a)s (71 women) and 373 Asians (258 women), with a mean age of 29 years recruited from community medical centers and an urban university. Perceived racism was assessed with the Perceived Ethnic Discrimination Questionnaire Community Version (PEDQ-CV) which measures lifetime exposure to ethnicity-related maltreatment, including social exclusion, workplace discrimination, stigmatization, and threat/harassment. Self reported health was assessed with the MOS general health scale (r = -.26, p < .01). The effects were seen for Blacks (r = -0.30) and Latinos (r = -0.20) and for the Asian group as a whole as well as for the Chinese, Indian, Korean, and Filipino subgroups (rs = -.26 to -.39, all ps < .05). The effects persisted when controlling for trait hostility. There were no ethnicity differences in the relationship of racism to self-reported health.